The English Style of Kitchen Garden Out Back Appeared in America as Well

When I visited the eighteenth century house and garden at Rousham in England, I noted the large walled garden to the side of the house. There I saw rows and rows of shrubs, vines, and flowers.

That was considered an important element in the modern garden design style of the eighteenth century when the Rousham garden [below] was installed.

Rousham Walled Garden

Even George Washington installed his own walled kitchen garden at Mount Vernon.

In his garden I also saw rows and rows of plants, but this time they were vegetables, beautifully arranged for the gardener to find easily any herb or vegetables [below].

A kitchen garden out back was the style of the modern England landscape of the eighteenth century.

Landscape gardener Humphry Repton wrote at the end of that century that the kitchen garden “should be out of view of visitors but close to the stables”.

Indeed that is what happened.

When the nineteenth century American seedsman Peter Henderson provided advice about the placement of the kitchen garden in his book Gardening for Pleasure, his landscape drawings in the book indicated the garden ought to be behind the house.

The Rochester, NY seedsman James Vick offered a similar recommendation in his catalog.

The Kitchen Garden at George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon [Pinterest – Benke Nursery Blog]

The nineteenth century American seed industry proposed the site of the kitchen garden in the same format as the modern English garden of the eighteenth century, behind the house and out of view of visitors.